10 Brands That Do Customer Service Right on Twitter

Here’s an interesting fact: 30% of top brands now have “dedicated customer service Twitter handles”. This makes perfect sense, right? Customers value great service above all else, they love the instant gratification of social media and they really, really hate waiting for reps to pick up the phone. Also: by establishing separate Twitter handles for customer service, brands can “divert negative attention and activity” away from the primary feed.

So what goes into running a great customer service operation in the twittersphere? In order to find out, we poked around and found ten examples of brands that are doing it right, starting with some of the biggest.

1. Nike Support: This one is pretty much the gold standard. A quick glance at the account with all replies shows you how quickly and how often the feed’s managers respond to individual customers.

2. Xbox Support: Xbox boldly claims to hold the Guinness World Record for “most responsive Twitter feed”–and based on the number of replies their team posts every minute, we can see why they make that claim.

5. Comcast Cares: Here’s a more personal take on the service feed. While most customer service team members leave their initials on tweets to distinguish who wrote the response, Comcast chose to use a real-life guy who’s not afraid to show his face. The brand also has individual account owners who occasionally jump in to help out.

@kkbranscum DM me the account phone number and i can look into for you

6. Amazon Help: Amazon was named best customer service brand in 2012, so we’re a little surprised that its feed’s following is so small. In some cases, a majority of customer service issues may be resolved through email/chat or directly on the site itself. Amazon often re-routes customers to one of those venues.

You don’t have to have a separate customer service Twitter handle to treat your followers right, though: here are a few brands that combine their feeds.

8. JetBlue: This airline is well known for its customer service, even if related tweets often refer customers to 1-800 numbers or service delay information sites that can better answer their questions.

9. American Airlines: Staying on the airline theme, we all know that AA has quite a few PR problems, but customer service on Twitter does not appear to be one of them. This feed isn’t strictly dedicated to CS, but its managers respond quickly to individual complaints, even if all they can say is “Sorry you hate your seat. Please speak to a flight attendant.”

@charbkm Hi Kristine, did you receive a file locator number in an automated e-mail when you filed the complaint?

10. Weight Watchers: Another brand that combines general information with replies to individual customers, many of which amount to congratulations on meeting their weight loss goals. Oh, and there’s a separate feed for men:

What do we think of these examples? Can we think of any that do customer service just as well or better on Twitter? And what do we think of reports claiming that brands are “stepping away from social media” as a customer service tool?

And here’s a final helpful tool: If you want to know how well you’re doing in terms of customer service on Twitter, SimplyMeasured offers a free analysis.

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